Staten Island Advance/Irving SilversteinNearly 3,000 Island students may lose their free rides to school due to planned cuts to yellow bus service. Here, Totten Intermediate School students get on a bus at Charleston Avenue and Hampton Place.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The borough's City Council contingent has filed a lawsuit hoping to force the city to keep yellow bus service for seventh and eighth grade Staten Island students.

This morning, Staten Island attorney Ronald Castorina provided his services gratis, representing five Island families in court. Castorina filed an affidavit and supporting documents in New York state Supreme Court, St. George, asking for the court's intervention and reconsideration of the plan to discontinue the bus service.

Parents and elected officials are arguing that Staten Island students have a disparate commute to school, as compared to students of other boroughs.

Councilmembers Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore), James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn) and Debi Rose (D-North Shore), who filed the petition, had much to say on the matter.

"When over two-thirds of the kids affected by this decision come from Staten Island, something isn't right," said Ignizio. "The D.O.E. shouldn't be in the business of making it more difficult to access schools, and it is especially abhorring to think of the effect that driving through a prison twice-a-day will have."

Said Oddo: "We had hoped that the Department of Education would do the right thing, change course, and admit they made a mistake in stripping our seventh and eighth graders of their school bus service. Instead, they have failed to correct their wrongheaded decision. This leaves us no choice but to seek to redress this decision in court."

Ms. Rose said: "It is an outrage to expect 7th and 8th graders to have to traverse public right-of-ways, cross busy and dangerous access roads and walk through unsafe conditions in order to get to school. Staten Island's geography and topography is not like the other boroughs. Moreover, there are no subways to which these children can avail themselves. Accordingly, the DOE's decision has left us with no other choice other than to file this lawsuit to protect Staten Island's children and their rights.""